the thing about pain
by lannistersdebt
Summary: "I come here every year." He looked down at the snow on the ground for a moment. "She deserves to have someone with her on Christmas, don't you think?" Written for finals round 2 of the Harry Potter Quidditch League Fanfiction Competition.


Death. Chaos. Destruction. There had been enough of it all in a single night to last Draco a lifetime and for a few brief moments, when Hagrid stood still and wept as he held Harry's limp form, he was afraid that it was what his life would morph into completely. He couldn't tell anyone what it was that he thought when he saw the other young man throw himself to the ground and then rise – the pain he felt later erased the memory of whatever his reaction was. Nor could he explain the emotions, as all remembrance of those had been eradicated as well.

He was glad the war had not ended as Voldemort had hoped, that good had overcome evil. Too much would have changed, and not for the better. His reasoning was different now than it had been then – now he could see how much he had been brainwashed, how much his fear of the dark wizard and his father had bent him to their will. He understood how _wrong _it had all been and how much he had destroyed himself.

His left hand rested on the cold evidence of one of those destructions as his right fingers traced the ever-so familiar letters carved into it. It was cold, the sort of cold that seeps deep into your bones, and his knees ached from kneeling. He sighed and watched the white of his breath against the dark grey of the stone until it disappeared into nothing.

"Nineteen-seventy-nine to nineteen-ninety-eight," he murmured to himself. "Not nearly enough time."

"Yeah. If it were then she'd have graduated. Gotten married. Had kids. She would have been the best thing to happen to the Ministry and to her husband, and her kids would be _damn lucky _to call her their mother. We'd be missing her still, but she wouldn't be missing all of that." The voice he had barely heard directly in seven years, the voice that practically the entire wizarding world knew, came from directly behind him. How had he not heard someone approaching?

"No, she wouldn't be." Draco straightened back up and pulled his coat tighter, making sure his bouquet was hidden within it before turning around. For some reason, he didn't want Harry to see it. "Yet she is missing it and there's nothing that we can do about that."

"What the fug are you doing at Hermione's grave anyway?" Harry's voice had shifted from angry to pained but his eyes said that his resentment was in no way diminished.

"I come here every year." He looked down at the snow on the ground for a moment. "She deserves to have someone with her on Christmas, don't you think?"

The silence between them was thick with things that neither could manage to say. After a moment, though, Harry cleared his throat. "Yes, but I never see you here."

And, for once, Draco Malfoy could say that he was doing something 'good' that Harry Potter was not. His lips moved into a sad smile. "No, Potter, I never see you here. I spend the whole afternoon here, so unless you come in the morning – and I know you don't, because you spend it with your wife and her family – then you aren't here every year."

He knew the fist would be coming but he made no move to block the blow or to avoid it. 'Just take it and examine the damage later,' he told himself. The force sent him staggering backward, into another headstone, and when he found himself sitting on the ground he decided to just stay there. If he closed his eyes, he reasoned, the darkness would help with the headache that was already setting in. And maybe, just maybe, when he opened them, Harry would be gone.

* * *

><p>Everything was silent for a moment after Voldemort and Harry's fight began again, each wizard as determined as the other to be the one delivering the fatal spell. It was as though the entire crowd could hardly believe their eyes, could hardly believe that they had all been deceived. The shock wore off quickly, however, when Harry took off through the courtyard.<p>

Draco stood for a moment, looking around him at the witches and wizards that had fallen when Harry's blasting curse rebounded from Nagini's protection hit them. The curses Voldemort was firing at the fleeing figure before him destroyed sections of brick when they missed their mark; the crumbling was loud until finally Harry ran up the Grand Staircase. Luna Lovegood choked back a scream as Neville was stunned and flew backward into the Great Hall. Bellatrix yelled, her voice audible over all the commotion. Draco ignored her, ignored the other Death Eaters, and watched what the other side was doing.

And then he was pushed, shoved, tugged. He lost track of where he was going, who was around him. All movement was met by a curse and he would be hard pressed to say which ones because he couldn't remember. He couldn't remember what he did, or when, or how he didn't end up on the ground himself.

What he _could _remember was finding her.

There was no one else around her, nobody to hear her soft, "Hello?"

Slowly, wand drawn, he walked toward the slightly open door. They were on the fourth floor of the castle – she had made it up here quickly, though it hadn't been fast enough to be able to hide from whomever had been chasing her. He paused just outside the door, unsure of whether or not this was some trick. Was she trying to ambush him? Was she sitting in wait, ready for him to peek in, prepared to hit him with one of the multitude of spells or curses she knew but he did not?

"Please…"

There was real pain in her voice.

"Granger?" The door flew open when he pulled it toward him. She lay right inside the entry to the room, half hidden by shadows. There were cuts all over her, tears in her jumper, an unnatural bend to her right arm. Nothing life threatening judging by first appearances. "Merlin, you're a mess."

She groaned. "First time that you don't sound happy about paying me an insult."

"And you're complaining about it." He knelt beside her, brow furrowed slightly. His tone had been slightly humorous but the darkness around Hermione's chest and stomach made his next words tight with worry. "Is that…blood? Hold still. _Lumos_."

The light was faint (his mother's wand worked well enough for him most of the time but it felt as though it were beginning to fight him now) but it was enough to confirm that there was blood. A lot of blood. A lot of blood and what looked like a dull weapon from the medieval days, sticking right through her. "Fug, Granger…"

"I tried… couldn't get out of the way quickly enough. Too slow. I can't move and I'm just so tired, Draco…" She fought to sit up for a moment before gasping, which turned into coughing. There were droplets of blood on her lips when she finished and if Draco thought he knew what it was like to panic before, he really knew then.

"I can't…I can't heal you. I don't know what to do for this – we need Madam Pomfrey or my mother or…" He trailed off for a moment, looking around them frantically. There was nobody else around, nothing in this room to help him. They were on their own and he had no idea what to do. Drawing in a deep breath, he met her eyes. "I'm going to try to carry you."

She didn't reply, just focused on breathing. Somehow, he managed to pick her up and raced toward the staircases, but there were too many and not enough time. They were on the third floor staircase when it started shifting and Draco cursed to himself. Alone, he would have jumped; they weren't _that _far from the landing. But with her in his arms, he knew it was impossible to make the distance.

The staircase was still moving when Hermione started crying. "Draco, I'm not going to make it. I can feel it."

Those words – he rejected their very essence.

"I refuse to accept that. I refuse." She shut her eyes tightly as she coughed again. "You've got to hold on at least until we get to safety."

But her tears wouldn't stop and there wasn't enough time. Swallowing the lump that was in his throat, he gently sat and eased her down so that her head was in his lap. "Alright then. We aren't going to get anywhere until this thing finally decides to stop moving. And I've been doing some thinking, Granger. We'd have actually been brilliant together, you know?"

"Perhaps." She swallowed.

"No, I'm serious. Imagine it for a moment. Factor my parents in, or take You-Know-Who out, either one. It works." He held her good hand in his. "This instance we'll go for how I wish things had gone. You come up to me in Diagon Alley as I stand there, waiting for my parents to finish talking to some of their friends, and you can tell that I'm bored. And that my family's old-rich. But you don't care – you have no use for these sorts of politics, as nobody should at the age of eleven.

You ask me for directions, and you give me your name. You're clearly not from a wizarding family, but I don't find that disgusting or revolting. I find it _fascinating_. You're alone, with no knowledge of this world, yet you're taking a risk and trying. I smile and tell you where Flourish and Blotts is, tell you that I'll go with you if you'll give me just a moment.

I tell my parents – even though they probably don't hear me - and we head off. You tell me how excited you were about getting your letter because it meant that magic was real and that you weren't a lunatic. I ask if you've got any friends, just to be polite, even though I don't think you have many. And from that moment on, it's like we've signed some sort of document requiring us to look out for each other."

"And then?" She was finally relaxing against him.

"Well, that's easy." He felt his cheeks warm. "I'm probably still a prat to Potter and Weasley, but I like you. You're immune to my insults and threats and all that, and I'm just stupid."

She tried to laugh, but the laugh turned into a cough. He waited until she could look at him again. "Okay. Date?"

"Oh, yes. Of course. First one is in fifth year. You had that fling or whatever with Krum, but you told me after it was over that you mainly only wanted to make me jealous. It worked. So before Umbridge goes completely mental – which we don't know will happen – and before our lives go down the hole, I get up the nerve to take you on a date. You laugh at me when I meet you outside the Gryffindor common room because you didn't expect me to bring you flowers. But I did, and I hand you the roses before asking for your arm. We somehow make it to the Room of Requirement – chosen because, after all, it is the perfect place to go for anything. We have a romantic dinner made up of your favorite foods and then my favorite dessert and oh-my-gosh can this really be happening? We're kissing, and you're genuinely happy. It's like the rest of the world doesn't exist and we don't have to worry about a thing."

If only.

"And we'll skip ahead a few years to us being twenty-five – me – and twenty-six – you - and getting married. We got engaged the previous year. Christmas Day, actually. You're working at the Ministry and I'm an auror, despite my parents wanting me to stick to an occupation less hazardous. We've got money, so I didn't let you skip out on a single thing you told me you wanted. You look beautiful in your white dress and when you turn just so, you wink at me. I'm so nervous as we exchange our vows, and then you only let me kiss you for a second. 'Can't let things go too far,' you whisper."

"What does it feel like?"

He moved his fingers to her face and skimmed her lips with them. "Like that."

"Just like that?"

"Yes. Later, you get more." He swallowed. "And before too long, you're telling me we're going to be parents. We're both thrilled and nervous and then we have a son. You want to name him Gemini, and I don't disagree with you because I like it. It seems like hardly any time goes by before you say it's happening again, and this time we're even more excited. We name him Orion. They're both smart and take after you more than me, and they remind me of you so, so much."

"It's a good life, then." She sounded weaker.

"A very good one. We have no regrets."

"You left out where your dad tells you that I'm not worthy to be with you because of my terribly dirty blood." Her eyes were on his, intense and focused despite her pain, and he imagined he could feel her hand clasping his.

"And that would be the part where we'd tell my father to fug off. Because what is this life if you don't listen to your own heart, Granger?"

She coughed and this time, there was quite a bit of red. Her breath sounded more labored than it had earlier. It was now or never, a moment he'd lose or a memory he'd keep forever. Carefully, he eased out from under Hermione's head and her brown eyes met his grey. "I told you that you would get more later."

Their kiss wasn't one that could save her, a magic cure. It was one that was long overdue to them, and it was the only one they would ever have because the moment it ended, she was gone. He was left there, kneeling over her, broken and in denial that such a human as Hermione Jean Granger could actually be gone.

* * *

><p>"'A lady's imagination is very rapid; it jumps from admiration to love, from love to matrimony in a moment.'" It hadn't worked. Potter was still there. "I used to think they were the only ones."<p>

Draco opened his eyes and glared up at the dark-haired wizard. "Why the hell are you quoting _Pride and Prejudice_?"

"As if you didn't just tell me what happened to her. How she spent her final moments." He rolled his eyes and turned away, giving Draco just enough time to catch the changed look on his face. There was guilt there. An overwhelming amount of guilt. "Do you… Do you know who actually did it? Who killed her?"

He nodded, almost as though he didn't mean to. "Bellatrix."

"I hate her even more now." There was silence for a long moment, and then Harry started walking. Over his shoulder, he addressed Draco once more. "You've changed, Malfoy. Seems like I'm the one who didn't."

Draco sat there until Harry was gone, taking the time to examine his face as well as he could by means of touch. It was tender and a bit swollen. There'd probably be a nice bruise.

Once he was certain that he was alone again, he got to his feet and pulled out the bouquet of roses that was miraculously unharmed from his fall. He cleared his throat, trying to push back the knot that was attempting to rise, and knelt before Hermione's headstone once more. He set the roses down, thought about how much the dark red contrasted against the stark white of the snow.

"I was supposed to propose to you today."

* * *

><p><em><strong>an;**_

This was written for Finals Round 2 of the Harry Potter Quidditch League Fanfiction Competition.  
>I write as Beater 1 for the Montrose Magpies.<br>The overall round theme was phrases.  
>My phrase was 'those words - he rejected their very essence.'<br>My prompts were;  
>- 3 (quote); "A lady's imagination is very rapid; it jumps from admiration to love, from love to matrimony in a moment." - Jane Austin, <em>Pride and Prejudice<br>_- 9 (word); examine  
>- 12 (word); snow<p>

Also... thanks to my usual loves, FF and Raybe!


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